Thursday, March 10, 2016

No lie -- politicians do -- March 10, 2016 column

Since Jimmy Carter said in 1976 that he would never lie to
us, presidential candidates have faced the question: Will you lie to the
American people?

Here’s how Hillary Clinton handled the question last month:

“You’re asking me to say, `Have I ever?’ I don’t believe I
ever have…I don’t believe I ever will. I am going to do the best I can to level
with the American people,” she told Scott Pelley of CBS News.

Her critics say Clinton lied about the Benghazi attack to
families of the fallen, her private email account at the State Department and
other things. She denies lying.

So here’s another question: Do a politician’s lies matter
anymore?

Republican Donald Trump, Clinton’s likely competitor in
November, is such an equal-opportunity prevaricator that no one asks him if he
will lie. People expect him to change his story. His supporters like his bluff
and bluster enough to forgive his whoppers.

After Trump jumped into the presidential race last June, he
played so loose with truth that PolitiFact, a fact-checking site, awarded him
the 2015 Lie of the Year for his collective misstatements.

When primary voters weigh the most important characteristics
of candidates, “honest and trustworthy” is not high on the scale. Among
Democratic voters in Virginia on Super Tuesday, for example, only about one in
four rated “honest and trustworthy” the most important candidate quality, while
36 percent rated “the right experience” most important.

It may seem quaint to us now, but voters in 1976 saw the
pledge of a peanut-growing Georgia governor as a refreshing change after the
lies, scandal and bad odor that permeated the Nixon years.

Only a few years
later, though, the oil crisis hit and Carter’s scolding tone turned off voters.

“In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families,
close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship
self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one
does but by what one owns,” Carter said in his “Crisis of Confidence” speech in
July 1979. It’s known as his “malaise” speech, though he never uttered the
word.

We may like the idea
of our president telling the truth and only the truth – but in practice we
punish those who say things we don’t like. In 1980, voters joined Ronald Reagan
in booting Carter back to Georgia.

In 1984, Democrat Walter Mondale, running against President
Ronald Reagan, said at the Democratic National Convention: “Let’s tell the
truth. President Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I
just did.”

Mondale’s politically motivated honesty help bury him that
November. It’s worth remembering that while Reagan
did not propose any tax increases in his second term, he did go along with those
sent his way by Congress. Revenue enhancements, anyone?

Voters also turn on presidents who honestly change their
minds. Just four years after Mondale’s debacle, George H.W. Bush declared at
the Republican National Convention in 1988, “Read my lips: no new taxes.” When the economy did not
improve as he expected, Bush agreed to a bipartisan plan that raised taxes in
1990.

Hillary Clinton has a sterling resume but her image for
honesty has long been tarnished. Eight years ago this week, when she was battling
Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, only 44 percent of
Americans thought she was honest and trustworthy, the Gallup organization
reported.

Her stature has diminished since then. Today, just 37
percent of Americans see Clinton as honest and trustworthy, the latest ABC
News-Washington Post poll reported Tuesday. Clinton says such polls are painful
to her. The silver lining for Clinton: Only 27 percent see Trump as honest and
trustworthy.

Forty years after a presidential candidate promised never to
lie, we’re heading for a November showdown between two candidates most voters
see as not honest and trustworthy. This election may come down to which one is
likable enough.